
GEORGE M. DALLAS, 



VICE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES. 






PREPARED \NDPT7BUSHED IN SEPTEMBER. 1844.DYTHE 
^democratic COMMITTEE OF PUBLICATION, 



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PHILADELPHIA: 

*,„« L« KEYSTONE JOB OFFICE. NO. 32 SOUTH THIRD STREET. 



iffW 



LIFE 



OF 



GEORGE MIFFLIN DALLAS, 



VICE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES. 




PREPARED AND PUBLISHED IN SEPTEMBER, 1844^ BS-XHE 

DEMOCRATIC COMMITTEE OF PUBLICATI0N7"! 

SAMUBL JI. PERKINS. 
ROBERT TAYLOR. 
M. N. C.1RPEIVTBR, 
,Jr., GEORGE A Ell Y. 

THOMAS SONSY, 
WILLI.!. 11 L 1 TTI.B, 
PATRICK LEVY. 
GEORGE P. LEHMAN, COMMITTEE. 

EXTENDED TO THE PRESENT TIME, AND REPRINTED NOV. 1847 



JOHN K. KANE, 
SAMUEL DAY IS, 
JOSEPH PUGH, 
JOHN HAMILTON, 
LEWIS OURT. Jr., 
J. IM BS W FLETCHER, 
BENJAMIN MIFFL LY, 



jD«m»<sTa.+»« «>&rKj. la. 









TIMES AND KEYSTONE JOB OFFICE 



PHILADELPHIA : 

NO. 32 SOUTH THIRD STREET. 

1847. 



■ 



GEORGE M. DALLAS, 

The nominee of the Democratic Convention for the Vice Presidency 
of the United States, was born in the city of Philadelphia, on the lOtli 
day of July, 1792. He is the youngest son of Alexander James Dallas, 
one of the most accomplished advocates and distinguished statesmen that 
have adorned the legal profession of the United States, or sustained in 
important posts of public trust the principles and policy of the Republican 
party.* His early education was conducted by Mr. Ely and Mr. Robert 
Andrews, of Philadelphia, both of whom have survived to witness the 
merited distinction of their pupil. At the age of fourteen, he was enter- 
ed in Princeton College, and continued there until 1810, when he gradu- 
ated with the highest honors of his class. He delivered their valedictory 
address, which is still remembered and adverted to in the college history 
as a striking example of feeling, eloquence and taste. Indeed, as a pub- 
lic speaker, he gave early promise of that excellence which has since been 
displayed in many of the prominent situations to which his talents have 
elevated him ; and a published oration, delivered when he was but sev- 
enteen years of age, and preserved in the Port Folio, strikingly attests 
the maturity of his powers. 

On leaving college, Mr. Dallas commenced the stud}' of the law, in the 
office of his father, at Philadelphia ; and although, in the intervals of that 
severe study, the more attractive forms of literature and poetry were not 
unfrequently cultivated, he yet persevered with unceasing application in 
making himself a thorough master of the great principles of the profes- 
sion of which he has been so distinguished a member. He was admitted 
to the bar in 1813. Soon after the declaration of war with England, he 
had enrolled himself in a volunteer corps ; but when, in the year 1813, 
Mr. Gallatin was appointed by President Madison, a member of the com- 
mission that repaired to St. Petersburg, for the purpose of negotiating a 
peace under the mediation of the Emperor Alexander, he accompanied 
that minister as his private and confidential secretary. During a resi- 



* Mr. Dallas derived his baptismal name of Mifflin from his godfather, Governor 
Mifflin, under whom his father had been appointed to the office of Secretary ol the Com- 
monwealth some months before. . 



(4) 

dence of more than a year in Europe, Mr. Dallas had an opportunity of 
visiting Russia, France, England, Holland, and the Netherlands, and of 
cultivating the society and friendship of some of the most eminent jurists 
and memorable statesmen of the age. He returned to the United States 
in August 1814, bearing the despatches from the American commis- 
sioners then holding their session at Ghent, which announced the prospects 
little favorable to a speedy peace, that are known to have resulted from 
the earlier conferences with the British envoys. On his arrival he found 
his father transferred from the bar of Philadelphia to the head of the 
Tn"i"riiry Department. 

No one who was then upon the stage of action will ever forget the cir- 
cumstances under which this appointment of the elder Mr. Dallas was 
made. It was in the darkest period of our history, immediately after the 
sacking of Washington, when treason was holding its convocations at 
noonday, when the credit of the country was annihilated, its flag trampled 
on, and all but hope and honor seemed buried under the ashes of the 
capitol. Called unexpectedly toa post, from which the most-distinguish- 
ed financier of the time had retired in dismay, it was the office of Mr. 
Dallas to rally the pride and renovate the patriotic energies of the nation, 
to explore and marshal its resources, and to convince the American peo- 
ple that their means were as adequate to the conflict as the conflict was 
just. Most gallantly indeed did he redeem the pledges that were implied 
in his acceptance of this perilous office. His spirit-stirring " exposition of 
the causes and character of the war " is among the most noble documents 
ever addressed by a fearless officer to a free people. Its effect was elec- 
tric, and the call which it vindicated for a broad and well digested sys- 
tem of direct taxation was responded to by the Republican party as with 
the voice of one man. The public faith was redeemed from that hour. 

Mr. Dallas remained with his father for a time at Washington, to as- 
sist him in the arduous duties of the Treasury, and then returned to Phil- 
adelphia, to resume, or rather to commence, the actual practice of his 
profession — an event that was almost immediately followed by his mar- 
riage with an accomplished lady, the daughter of Mr. Nicklin, an emi- 
nent merchant of that city. 

The death of his father, which occurred shortly after he retired from 
the administration of the Treasury Department, took from Mr. Dallas, in 
the outset of his career at the bar, not merely the benefit of professional 
assistance seldom equalled, but those kind and endearing associations 
which could have grown up only in intercourse with one whose genius 
was not more brilliant than his affections were warm. Self-dependent, 
however, he applied himself with the more ardor to the practice of the 



( 5 ) 

law ; and being appointed, in 1817, the deputy of the Attorney General 
in the city of Philadelphia, he soon gave evidence of that skill in con- 
ducting criminal cases which has since always distinguished his occa- 
sional attention to that branch of his profession. When, in the following 
year, charges were introduced into the General Assembly of Pennsylva- 
nia, against Governor Findlay, which resulted in a legislative investiga- 
tion, Mr. Dallas acted as his counsel; and the firmness and ability which 
he displayed throughout the whole proceeding, placed him at once, by 
general consent, in a rank in his profession that has seldom been attained 
by so young an advocate. 

It is scarcely necessary to remark, that the exigencies of a legal life 
could not withdraw Mr. Dallas from the deepest interest in political topics. 
Deriving from the conduct and counsels of his father, and from the asso- 
ciations of his earliest youth, as well as those of later days, a strong at- 
tachment to the principles and views of the Democratic party, he had 
never failed to co-operate with his fellow-citizens in the measures which 
were calculated to advance them. The more tranquil administration of 
Mr. Monroe, succeeding to the fierce political conflicts which existed dur- 
ing the war with England, did not present many questions that rallied 
party controversies on national affairs ; but the election of Governor Heis- 
ter in Pennsylvania had brought the Federal party into power in that 
State, after a long period of Democratic ascendancy, and no one em- 
barked with more zeal than Mr. Dallas in endeavoring to effect the resto- 
ration of the policy which he believed to be essential to a sound and just 
administration of the affairs of the Commonwealth. These efforts re- 
sulted in the triumphant election of Governor Shulze, the candidate of 
the Democratic party. 

But while unanimity, followed by success, thus attended the course of 
his political associates in the State, the elements of division among the 
Democracy of the Union began to be apparent in regard to the individual 
who was to succeed Mr. Monroe. Early personal associations, as well 
as just appreciation of his distinguished talents, had led Mr. Dallas to 
unite with a large portion of his political friends in Pennsylvania, in a 
desire that the vote of the State should be given to Mr. Calhoun ; and the 
success with which that statesman had conducted the administration of 
the War Department for the eight previous years seemed to give a c r- 
tain pledge, notwithstanding his comparative youth, of the ability he 
would display in any Executive office to which the voice of his country- 
men should call him. When, however, the general sentiment of the Re- 
publican party throughout the Union expressed a desire to confer it on 
the venerable patriot who had so long and so faithfully maintained their 

1* 



(6) 

principles in various posts of civil trust, and so brilliantly augmented the 
g'.ory of his country in the field of battle, Mr. Dallas, with sentiments 
towards Gen. Jackson in which the friends of Mr. Calhoun in Pennsyl- 
vania at once participated, took the lead in suggesting that the younger 
candidate should be presented to the American people for the second 
office, while the united and harmonious voice of the Democratic party 
should name Gen. Jackson for the Presidential chair. In every measure 
that resulted from this determination, Mr. Dallas bore a prominent part; 
the eloquent address in which the Democratic Convention of the State 
], resented their reasons for the course they had adopted, is generally un- 
derstood to have proceeded from his pen; and when, in November, 1824, 
the unusually large majority of more than thirty thousand Democratic 
votes showed the enthusiastic feeling of the people of the State, there 
v, ere few among them whose zeal had been more honorably and actively 
displayed than his in producing that gratifying result. 

The nefarious compact, in which Mr. Clay figured so largely, having 
wrested the Presidency from General Jackson, the succeeding four years 
only contributed to create the yet stronger concentration of public opinion 
in his favor ; and when he obtained, in 1828, the suffrages of fifteen States, 
the majority in Pennsylvania had increased beyond fifty thousand. It was 
during this interval that Mr. Dallas received from the people of his native 
/\ an honorable mark of their confidence, by an election to the Mayor- 
: an office which for many years past has, in consequence of the usual 
ndancy of the Federal party, been seldom bestowed upon a person of 
his political opinions. On the election of General Jackson, he was select- 
ed by him as the chief representative of the Executive Government of the 
Union, in the same city, being appointed lo the office of District Attorney 
of the United States. To the same post hi* father hail been appointed l»; 
Mr. Jefferson, through the whole of whose administration he continued to fill 
it ; and from that office Mr. Madison calle'l him to the head of the Treasury. 
His son occupied the post for a much shorter period ; hut in the two years 
during which he discharged it* duties, several cases of public interest and 
considerable magnitude gave full scope to his abilities, and contributed 
their share to his reputation as a professional man, which each year con- 
tinued to augment. 

At length, in the year 1831, a vacancy having occurred in the repre- 
sentation from Pennsylvania in tin Senati of the United States, the Legis- 
lature selected Mr. Dallas to fill that honorable post. Thus, in entering 
for the first time a legislative body, he found himself in the highest and 
most important assembly that exists under the provisions of the American 
Constitution. A new field was given to his talents as a statesman and an 



(?) 

orator. Having at the bar of Philadelphia few equals in forensic eloquence, 
and being perhaps without a rival, certainly without a superior at home, 
on any occasion of public, and especially political discussion, he was now- 
required to match himself with men trained by exercise, as well as pos- 
sessed of distinguished ability, in a scene which forbade the logical pre- 
cision of a court, and yet could scarcely call forth or permit the animated 
current of spontaneous declamation, so often successfully indulged in the 
lesser assemblages of his fellow-citizens. His speeches in the Senate of 
the United States, throughout the period that ho remained there, were 
heard with attention that gave evidence of his complete success. Those 
that have heen more carefully reported, display, on a variety of topics, 
striking political views; and they abound with passages of animated elo- 
quence. 

The charter of the Bank of the United Stales, which had been granted 
in 1718, was about to expire. The officers of that institution solicited 
Mr. Dallas to present its claims for a renewal ; and the repeated instruc- 
tions which the Legislature of Pennsylvania had addressed to him ou the 
subject, left him without discretion as to his senatorial course. He pre- 
sented the memorial of the Hank, frankly avowing his disinclination to the 
office of its advocate, and protesting a determination to submit its conduct 
to the most careful scrutiny. It is well remembered in Philadelphia, with 
how little favor his speech on this occasion was received by the banking 
directors of ( !hestnut street. The amendments which he grafted on their 
project, and the jealously republican spirit with which he proposed to divest 
it of all possible influence upon the politics of the country, were equally the 
subject of obnoxious criticism. It was the day of moneyed pride and 
corporate control, which brooked no limitation, and was insulted by a doubt. 
The loss dignified considerations which so naturally stimulated their dis- 
taste to supervision, had not yet been developed. 

Like most of the Democratic statesmen of Pennsylvania, Mr. Dallas 
had not then adopted the opinion which he has since asserted so frequent- 
ly and with so much force, that such an incorporation is not warranted by 
the Constitution. His doubts regarded rather the manner in which the 
affairs of the bank had boon conducted with reference to the public inter- 
ests, and its controverted interference in popular elections. But circum- 
stances soon transpired, which changed his doubts to conviction, and Mr. 
Dalla- found himself in the first rank among the uncompromising oppo- 
nents of that corrupt and corrupting monopoly. His recent letter to Mr. 
Wentworth declares Ids abiding sentiment on the question of a National 
Bank. His letter to a committee at Smithfield, in 1830, had already ex- 



(8) 

pressed it with epigrammatic brevity : " The people of America can 
never again incur the risk of a National Bank." 

Another most interesting subject of general discussion made the winters 
of 1832 and 1833 more memorable in our legislative history than any 
period since the war with England. The principles on which a revision 
of the tariff of duties was to be made, gave rise, in the former session, to 
warm and long debates, which, in the following one, led to those that in- 
volved the serious question of a right of one or more of the States to nul- 
lify a law making such revision on principles that it might regard as 
contrary to the provisions of the Constitution. On both occasions, Mr. 
Dallas took part in these debates. On the former, after an eloquent pic- 
ture of the situation and resources of the United States, he touched with 
a powerful, but friendly spirit, the various causes to which, independently 
of the policy of protection generally advocated by the Northern states- 
man, might be imputed the distresses that were supposed peculiarly to 
affect and injure the agriculture of the South. Following then the course 
of general opinion, as well as the declared policy of Pennsylvania, evinced 
by the repeated instructions of her Legislature, he presented, in a man- 
ner not often surpassed in force and clearness by those who have treated 
the matter in the same light, the views then entertained on the best mode 
of adjusting the delicate question, so as to save the South from any real 
injury, and preserve from destruction the labor and pursuits of the North- 
ern and Middle States. When the heightened excitement of the following 
year produced that gloomy epoch in our fraternal annals, which was mark- 
ed by serious discussions on the extent of force that the General Govern- 
ment might exert upon the opposing laws of the States, and the conse- 
quent action of her authorities and people, he sustained that power in the 
Union which he believed to be essential to its preservation, and warranted 
by the spirit and terms of the contract ; but deprecated, in so doing, every 
measure not clearly necessary for those objects. On all questions appear- 
ing to involve any differences of policy or interest among the Stales, Mr. 
Dallas appears uniformly to have leaned to that course which he deemed 
most calculated, even at some sacrifice, to preserve the harmony of the 
whole. 

On the much vexed question of the Tariff, his opinions coincide with 
those uniformly expressed by General Jackson, and which some of the 
recent letters of Mr. Clay, if uncontradicted by others, would imply that 
he also had adopted. But, unlike the candidate of the Whigs, his princi- 
ples do not vary with the latitude ; he has but a single set of them. He 
regards the Tariff as an administrative measure, to be regulated by the 



(9) 

revenue wants of the General Government, by a scrupulous care to avoid 
all injustice to any section of the country, and by a patriotic determina- 
tion to maintain the practical independence of the people, as to all articles 
necessary to defence or safety. He is neither for a horizontal Tariff, as 
that system has been termed, by which necessity and luxury, the salt of 
the poor man and the tokay of the princely, are required to bear equal bur- 
thens ; nor for a Tariff merely protective, which dispenses wealth by law 
to certain interests, at the expense of all the rest. His would be a Tariff 
essentially for revenue, incidentally for protection ; such a Tariff as was 
enacted by the framers of our Constitution, in the first year of the govern- 
ment, and under which our whole country was prosperous and all our 
people contented. 

On the 3d of March, 1833, the term expired for which he had been 
elected to the Senate. At his own request, his name was withheld from 
the Legislature as a candidate for re-election. He was desirous to return 
to the bar, from which such an occupation necessarily withdrew him : 
and his doing so was speedily followed by his appointment to an office, 
whose duties, while not unconnected with politics, were far more in ac- 
cordance with his professional pursuits. He was selected by Governor 
Wolf as the Attorney General of his native State, and he continued to 
hold it with increasing reputation, and with a degree of approbation and 
confidence on the part of the whole community, never exceeded, nor often 
equalled, until the change in the executive administration of the State, by 
the election of Gov. Ritner, of course induced him to withdraw. 

Mr. Dallas had scarcely retired to private life, when he was made the 
object of one of the most remarkable proceedings that have ever charac- 
terized the political course of the party opposed to Democratic principles, 
during any of the intervals of their temporary ascendancy. Under the 
pretext of inquiring into the character and acts of secret associations, 
several of the leading members of the Republican party were summoned 
to Harrisburg in the middle of the winter, and in defiance of the positive 
provisions of the constitution of (he State, a right was assumed by a com- 
mittee of the Legislature to investigate their private and social conduct as 
members of Masonic societies. Of the persons subjected to this strange 
inquisition, Mr. Dallas was one. He obeyed the summons issued under 
the apparent sanction of the House of Representatives, and -appeared 
before the committee,- but when asked to take the oath by which he was 
required virtually to acknowledge the right of instituting an inquisition 
so unheard of, into the private and harmless conduct of himself and his 
associates, he refused, in a short but most impressive address, and dis- 
played, in terms that led to the abortive termination of the disreputable 



( io) 

affair, its injustice, illegality, and folly. His manly and decided course 
on this occasion gained for him the grateful acknowledgements of many 
who, though opposed to him in the ordinary contests of party, yet appre- 
ciated as he did the sanctity of social intercourse and domestic privacy. 
While he was at Boston in 1837, about to embark for Russia, his conduct 
before the committee of inquisitors was commemorated by a splendid en- 
tertainment, in which the most distinguished citizens of all parties united. 

During his detention at the seat of the State Government, he perceived 
the secret operations that soon ripened to so fatal a-result, by which the 
Bank of the United States was imposed, by corrupt and dishonest means, 
on the people of the United States, and especially of Pennsylvania, as a 
State institution. He lent the aid of his influence and talents to resist it 
while he remained at Harrisburg, and on his return to Philadelphia 
awakened his Democratic brethren, in public discussions, to a full sense 
of the danger whose near approach had been carefully concealed. The 
history of that disastrous measure, and the means by which its success 
was achieved, if not yet developed in all their details, are yet generally 
i n iwn. In consequence of it, the State was plunged into the long train 
of disasters from which its citizens have not yet been able to extricate 
themselves, and of which the effects, extending far beyond their imme- 
diate objects, have produced the most deplorable results on the business, 
prosperity, and even character of the American people. Even after the 
lies had been fixed, Mr. Dallas was among those who sought to re- 
i :ve the community from so fatal a thraldom. Taking advantage of the 
approaching Convention, when the people of the State were to meet with 
every attribute of original sovereignty not restrained by the Constitution 
of the United States, and of which the assemblage was promulgated by 
the vote of the people before the act in question was passed, be called to 
the consideration of the State, in an able and eloquent letter, the propriety 
of examining in the frauds that had been perpetrated, and relieving the 
commonwealth, by an edict of that bod}', from all fraudulent invasions of 
its rights, due care being taken to protect and indemnify individuals con- 
cerned in the institution from any pecuniar}' loss. 

The political history of the following winter was marked by the election 
of Mr. Van Buren to the Presidency; and one of the earliest of his acts 
was to offer to Mr. Pallas the post of Envoy Extraordinary and Minister 
Plenipotentiary to Kussia. In that country he remained till October 1839. 
The only portion of his official correspondence, while there, that has been 
made public, is his discussion with Count Nesselrode, relative to the terri- 
tories and commercial intercourse of the two nations on the coast of the 
Fa.cific Ocean, It developes several points connected with the rights of 



(11 ) 

the respective governments on those shores, presented with great clear- 
ness and interest, and destined, no doubt, at a day not very distant, to be- 
come subjects of still more general and minute examination. The claims 
and rights of the Americans are sustained with great ability and power. 

In the same spirit which watched so carefully the proceedings of Rus- 
sia on the north-west coast, he urged upon our government at home the 
indispensable duty of asserting their rights in the Oregon territory, and 
pointed out the insidious means by which that great question was sought 
to be complicated. Indeed, on this topic, as well as that of Texas, Mr. 
Dallas has been far in advance of his party friends. It is more than five 
years since his warning voice was raised against the encroachments of 
England on the west, and he was among the very first of our statesmen 
to vindicate the policy and justice of guarding against her approaches on 
the south by re-annexing Texas to the Union. His eloquent letter on this 
subject to a committee at Pittsburg, was written at the close of the last 
year. 

To those objects of inquiry, which in such a country as Russia, would 
naturally attract an intelligent mind, Mr. Dallas devoted great attention. 
Into its history, and a study of the habits, manners and character of its 
people, he plunged with a natural enthusiasm, and collected a variety of 
facts tending to elucidate all these subjects. In a public address, delivered 
not long after his return to the United States, he sketched with a vivid 
and brilliant pen several of these topics ; but it is to be hoped that a work 
of a more extensive kind may be hereafter given to the public. It is one 
which is rendered peculiarly interesting, from the nature of the friendly 
relations that have existed, and that circumstances will probably long pre- 
serve. He remarked with great truth, in the address referred to, that 
" such, for more than half a century, has been the strangeness and per- 
versity of other international pretensions, that this republic and that des- 
potism, though widely separated, recognized the wisdom of closely ce- 
menting their mutual amity. The freedom of the seas, the rights of 
neutrality, the searchless shelter of the fag, were early links of sympathy 
and confidence which the forecast of Mr. Jefferson strove to rivet. To 
these ties are "since added others, springing mainly from a common con- 
sciousness that, while there can seldom- if ever be points of enmity, their 
geographical relation on opposite flanks of rival and ambitious powers, 
gives to their declared friendship a vast efficiency in discouraging as- 
saults or encroachments upon their own security, pursuits and indepen- 
dence. It is but a reasonable curiosity which seeks to understand a na- 
tion, more likely than any other to be the permanent and pacific ally of 
the United States." 



(12) 

Since Mr. Dallas' return from Russia, he has devoted himself exclu- 
sively to the practice of his profession; and ihough it is generally under- 
stood that not long after that event, a seat in his cabinet was tendered to 
him by Mr. Van Buren, he has, so far, adhered to his determination tore- 
main in private life. "That he will be long permitted to do so," says his elo- 
quent and almost prophetic biographer in the Democratic Review, of whose 
production this is little else than a summary, " we cannot think, unless he 
shall strenuously resist the wishes and the judgment of his fellow citizens. 
To the confidence reposed in him, founded in his adherence from earliest 
youth to the accepted doctrines of the republican party on every great na- 
tional question, he adds a brilliancy of genius, a spotless personal life, 
and qualities so calculated to win the affections and regard of all with 
whom he is called into association, that his native State, placing him as she 
does in the highest class of her favorite sons, will scarcely consent that 
the riper years of his life shall be withdrawn altogether from her service, 
and that of the people of the United States. Adorning and filling, as he 
would with eminent distinction, the most exalted offices that his fellow- 
citizens can bes'.ow, their hope is certainly as general as it is reasonable 
and just, that none of the accidents which hang upon all human foot-steps 
may withhold him from the honorable discharge of those public trusts, 
which are conferred by the willing suffrages of a free people upon those 
among them who have been found to be the most deserving." 

In personal appearance and deportment, few men blend more simplicity 
and dignity ; and as a public speaker, his manner is singularly preposses- 
sing. Though not hasty or unusually rapid, his lively imagination and 
success in happy illustration give to his speeches, even when least pre- 
meditated, an attractive variety, aptness and ease, and make him one of 
the most fortunate of orators in occasional addresses to popular bodies, as 
he has been one of the most successful in scenes requiring the highest 
talents for debate. To letters he is known to have always been as much 
devoted as the occupation of an otherwise active life would permit. His 
numerous political papers give evidence of an excellent style ; and it is 
not many years since his occasional contributions in the various branches 
of elegant literature were to be found in the publications of the day. 

These are indeed the ornaments and coloring, rather than the fibre of a 
statesman's character. But they grace it, without impairing its strength. 
A quick penetration, a calm judgment, a clear analytical mind richly im- 
proved by the study of the world as well as books, generosity of tempera- 
ment, warmth in friendships, and that universal yet dignified courtesy 
which resolves itself into conscious equality with the humblest and the 
most powerful alike — these are more essential traits in the portraiture of 



( 13) 

republican greatness ; and all who know Mr. Dallas will at once recog- 
nize them as his own. 

Such has been the life, and such is the character of him, whom the 
Democracy of Pennsylvania submits with pride to her sisters of the 
Union as her first recognized candidate for the Executive Magistracy. 
It is not to disparage any other of the eminent men whom her suffrages 
have honored, to affirm that no one of her statesmen has ever maintained 
a purer or more elevated walk of life, been more beloved by those around 
him, and respected every where, or been more richly commended to the 
favor of his country by his patriotism, his services, and his capacity for 
enlarged usefulness, than George M. Dallas. 



It is among the trophies of our Democracy that the pledges and pro- 
phecies which were embodied three years ago in the succinct narrative 
which is now re-published, have been so abundantly fulfilled by the after 
career of this illustrious statesman. 

A triumphant majority of the "willing suffrages of a free people" 
called him to one of the most exalted offices in their gift, and to a public 
trust, which by the fortune of human events involved the fate of mea- 
sures essential to the prosperity of the Union and the safety of the prin- 
ciples on which it rests. Under what circumstances of trial and diffi- 
culty, yet how gallantly and how triumphantly he has fulfilled this trust, 
is fresh in the memory of a grateful country. 

Mr. Dallas took his oath of office as Vice President on the 4th of 
March, 1845. In his letters at the time of accepting the nomination of 
the united Democracy, he had pledged his emphatic support to four mea- 
sures of policy : the introduction of Texas into the number of the 
United States ; the extension of our laws over the territory of Oregon; 
the separation of the moneys of the people from those of individual or 
chartered capitalists ; and such an adjustment of the Tariff" of duties on 
imports, as withdrawing from the pockets of the people for the uses of 
the government no more moneys than the necessities of an economical 
Administration might require, should leave every branch of domestic in- 
dustry under the equal protection of the law, and open to the competition 
of all. 

Immediately after Mr. Dallas took his seat in the chair of the Presi- 
dent of the Senate, the floor of that body became the brilliant and peril- 
ous arena in which these momentous questions were discussed by their 
most distinguished champions. Texas had been annexed by one of the 
closing efforts of Mr. Tyler's administration ; but the responsibilities of ad- 



( 14 ) 

mating her into the family of the States were grievously- increased by 
the hostile attitude which Mexico assumed, and by the intrigues of the 
great crowned powers of Western Europe. 

The Oregon question at the same moment threatened to involve us in 
war with England, that ancient and proud people, from which we have 
derived our own institutions of civil freedom, but which has not yet for- 
given us for crowning them by the assertion of our political indepen- 
dence. In our negotiation with England, we maintained that the whole 
territory south of 54° 40' was part and parcel of the United States; and 
one of the most powerful letters of the Secretary of State, Mr. Buchanan, 
conclusively established the rightfulness of this claim, and the apparent 
impossibility of yielding it. 

The proceedings of the Senate, while acting upon treaties made by the 
Executive, are conducted with closed doors ; but enough is known of the 
frankly declared and firmly defended opinions of Mr. Dallas, to justify 
the record in this place, that when others yielded to the pressure of cir- 
cumstances, he remained fearless and firm in the attitude he had from the 
first assumed on this thrilling subject. If, as the more recent observa- 
tions give reason to apprehend, the Oregon Treaty has left to us little 
more than a barren remnant of our ancient western frontier, he was not 
a party to the surrender. 

The Sub-Treasury, or its antagonist schemes of a National Bank and 
a hydra-headed combination of the State Banks, was the next great topic 
upon which parties divided. It is well to recall the fact as an item of 
history. It has now no other interest ; for there is no statesman and 
scarcely any voter, who, after testing the results of the Sub-Treasury 
system, would dream of returning to the follies which preceded it. Mr. 
Dallas, by his inflnence and his counsel, contributed largely to the adop- 
tion of the Independent Treasury. 

The Tariff" subject — from the intricacy of its details; the vast pecuniary 
interests which it affected or was supposed to affect; the monopolies, 
grown rich and powerful under the law of '42, which adopting the ap- 
proved definition of a competence, " a little more than a man hath in pos- 
session," now exacted that their gains should be perpetuated ; and the 
excited feeling of those, whom the same legislation had impoverished, 
and who naturally struggled to be released from it; from all these causes 
the Tariff question was compassed about by difficulty, and scarcely sus- 
ceptible of temperate discussion. Our own Legislature too, looking to 
the question with feelings which in the legislators of a State might well 
be pardoned for their exclusiveness of character, had instructed its Sena- 
tors in advance to vote against every change. The act of 1846 came to 
the Senate, with all that bold simplicity and manliness of character stamp- 
ed upon it, which characterize the productions of Robert J Walker's 



( 15) 

mind. The Senate, after a lengthened and fierce debate, was so near- 
ly divided that it was in the power of one man, by dodgingthe vote, to 
throw all the responsibility of action upon the shoulders of the Vice 
President. A contemptible intrigue, scarcely worthy of some of those 
into whose counsels it was admitted, prevailed on one wretched Senator 
to withdraw behind the bar of the Senate chamber. His absence made 
the vote a tie. The ayes stood 27 ; the noes, also 27. Mr. Dallas rose, 
and in a speech of unequalled dignity and force, declared the conclu- 
sions to which his judgment had led him. Quoting the Constitution, 
he remarked upon the interpretation of the Tariff-making power which 
had been approved by a majority of the States. He then alluded, in 
contrast, to the wishes of his own State, to which, during his career as 
its representative, he had more than once deferred, and spoke with deep 
feeling of his sympathies with the individual interests which might be 
jeoparded by his course. But, adverting to his position as Vice Presi- 
dent of all the States, he added with resolution, that "the fact that the 
bill before him dealt with some of the pursuits and resources of his 
native Commonwealth less kindly than she might well have expected, 
did not relieve him from his duty, but only made its performance person- 
ally reluctant and painful." 

He gave the Casting Vote! His friends who stood round him in the 
gallery of the chamber, and his enemies too, wondered at the placid grace 
with which he bore himself in this stern trial of his patriotic firmness. 
So far as parlizan foresight could see, he was sealing the doom of his po- 
litical hopes. "How beautifully he pronounces his death warrant!" was 
the exclamation of an eminent Pennsylvania!!, as Mr. Dallas reached 
the closing words of his address : 4< If by thus acting, it be my misfortune 
to offend any portion of those who honored me with their suffrages, £ 
have only to say to them, and to my whole country, that / prefer the 
deepest obscurity of private life, with an unwounded conscience, to the 
glare of official eminence, spotted by a sense of moral delinquency." 

The exasperation of the monopolist party at this vote was such as to 
remind one of the days of Jackson's veto of the Bank Charter. It showed 
itself in all those forms of dignified rebuke, which the lords of the yard- 
stick and the spinning-jenny delight to indulge in. Their hireling news- 
papers compared him to Judas and Arnold ; the petty orators of the Clay 
Club grew magnificent as they denounced a patriotism too exalted for 
their comprehension ; and Market Street and Front Street, though not 
quite yet recovered from the memory of the bets they had lost at the last 
election, added a per centage to the party funds of Whiggery, to pay the 
charges of burning him in effigy, and insulting the ladies of his family 
by placards upon his door. 

Sixteen months ago ! The time seems short for the vindication of a 



( 10) 

statesman's fame, and the developement of national gratitude. But it has 
been long enough. Is there any one now to complain of the casting vote, or 
to sigh for a restoration of the Tariff of '42 ? Who now talks of denoun- 
cing Mr. Dallas, of crushing him with the weight of popular indignation, 
of hanging him as high as Haman on the trees of Independence Square ? 
Where now is that affiliated band of shop-boy heroes, which stood pledged 
in August, 1846, to escort him into town with the music of the Rogue's 
March? Truly, these things were, and we in Philadelphia witnessed 
them. But how wonderful has been the change ! 

The manufacturer and the miner have gone on redoubling their pro- 
fits; the industry and skill of the mechanic, freed from the restraints of 
miscalled protection, are more independent and more productive than be- 
fore — the merchant wonders at the prosperous returns of emancipated 
commerce — and the farmer, whistling as he turns the furrow, finds the 
whole world opened to him for his market, and himself at liberty to buy 
where he can buy cheapest, and to sell where he can get the best price. 

And is it wonderful, that public feeling now turns gratefully to the 
man, by whose casting vole these things have been brought about ; the 
man who dared to be honest, when honesty and policy seemed for the 
time to have shaken hands and parted ; the man who, when wise men 
doubted and brave men faltered, saw his duty clear and performed it fear- 
lessly ; the man, who raised up as the representative of all the States, 
looked upon all of them as his constituents alike; and when sworn to 
protect the Constitution, planted himself in front of it, to turn away (if it 
might be so,) the shafts that endangered it, or receive them in his bosom? 

We have many brave sons here in Pennsylvania, who when the coun- 
try calls on them to suffer or to die, are not backward to offer themselves 
up ; we have fathers among us who, emulating the patriarch, have gone 
forth with their first-born to the field of heroic sacrifice ; and mothers too, 
whose better than Spartan spirit brightens up the homestead hearth with 
the perpetual altar fire of their own patriotism. These are people, with 
whom conscientious responsibility is a familiar spirit; who used to duty 
in whatever shape it may come, whether of patient endurance or ener- 
getic trial, can value true virtue in another. And these measured 
justly the official devotion of Mr. Dallas, when, hemmed round by ex- 
asperated opponents, and by hesitating politicians of his own party, he 
gave his vote for the country. Truly said Mr. Van Buren, " The people 
will never be faithless to any man, who never was false to them." 

Yet it is not only in reference to the past, nor even the present, that 
Mr. Dallas' casting vote is so full of interest. At the time he gave it, it 
exemplified well his uniform fidelity to his pledges and to principle; and 
now, while our country is rejoicing in the fruits of his integrity and 
firmness, it explains the grateful feeling with which all regard him. But 



- ( H 

we are men, and the future is before us; a rapidly advancing future, in 
which the dignity, the fame, the honor of our county must of necessity 
be involved. A\ ithin the next Presidential term, national rights are to be 
adjusted of more serious import than any which have been discussed 
since the war with England, and domestic questions of deep and anxious 
constitutional interest ! Who is the man, to whose firm grip we shall 
entrust the flag of our national honor .' Who shall have charge of the 
Ark of the Constitution ? 

We know what these questions are ; and we know from the veteran par- 
ty leader of the Whigs, how that party is disposed to deal with them. We 
know too that by a series of accidents, a Whig majority has found its way 
into the House of Representatives, and that the Senate is now for all 
practical purposes a divided body. It is to the President, as in the times 
of General Jackson, that we of the Democratic faith must now look for 
our only certain hope. 

What are the questions ? 

The war with Mexico, triumphant every where, has transferred to our 
possession the capital, the sea-ports, the fortresses, the territory and the 
treasure of that nation. Yet peace and indemnity, the only objects for 
which we have fought, seem as far off as ever: the Military, who have 
till now ruled that ill-fated country with a rod of steel, are prisoners or 
fugitives, and not even the form of a government remains for us to nego- 
ciate with. What are we to do? The simple and straight-forward an- 
swer would seem to be, that we should either hold on to all that we have 
got till we are made whole for what justice has cost us ; or that we should 
compensate ourselves at once, by now annexing to our territory and by de- 
grees including within the circle of our institutions a portion of the Mexi- 
can domain. 

To the latter course, the shortest as it seems to us, the most natural, the 
most in accordance with the spirit of our country, which recognizes self- 
government as the right of all mankind, and looks on the people of the 
United Slates as the missionaries of advancing freedom — to this course, so 
just, so beneficent, harmonizing so well with the destinies and duties of 
the great Republic, a patriotic and highly intelligent body of our country- 
men interpose' a preliminary question. Freemen themselves, in spirit and 
by inheritance, and unwilling to permit the extension of slavery to regions 
in which it is not now tolerated, they would have Congress declare before- 
hand that there jhall never be slaves on the soil which we obtain from 
Mexico. Others equally fervent with these, protest that this is a house- 
hold subject, and excluded by the terms of the Constitution from the sphere 
of Federal legislation — that while the President and Congress have charge 
of the foreign relations of all the States, making war. regulating com- 
merce and collecting duties on imports for national objects, the Constitu- 



( 18 ) 

tion has expressly reserved to the people of each State the right of deter- 
mitiing for themselves upon all other matters of legislation whatsoever; 
that in our free and equal confederacy, there can be no inequality of rights 
between the States of which it is made up ; that Louisiana and Missouri 
have just the same powers within their own borders as Massachusetts and 
New York ; and they add, that if California or New Mexico shall here- 
after be adjoined to the Union, it will be for the people of those States, as 
it is now for the people of Pennsylvania and Virginia, to decide the question 
of slavery for themselves. 

A third set are for splitting the difference, dividing the proposed new 
States that are to come to us from Mexico into two somewhat unequal 
portions, and leaving to those in one portion a full share of constitutional 
rights, but denying it to the rest. This is called the Missouri compromise ; 
according to which when carried out fully, the man whose house stands 
on the dividing line of 36° 30' may hold slaves in one half of it, but not 
in the other. This is the scheme which the Secretary of State, Mr. Buch- 
anan, opposed so strenuously in 1818, but which more mature reflection 
and perhaps a change of circumstances have combined to make him favor 
at the present time. 

They are difficult questions perhaps ; but Mr. Clay has found a short 
way of solving them. In his great speech at Lexington, Kentucky, on 
the 13th of November, he has cut the knot. He has found out, "most fer- 
vent idolater of truth," that when Mexico had declared war in form and 
had already invaded our soil, then for Congress to recognize the existence 
of the war by the act of Mexico, was to stamp on our statute "book " a pal- 
pable falsehood;" that ours "is no war of defence, but one of unneces- 
sary and of offensive aggression," "continued blindly without any visible 
object, or any prospect of definite termination." He acknowledges indeed 
that Mexico owes us large sums of money ; but then she has fought us, 
he says, till she has become too poor to pay, except in land, and this she 
will not give, and we ought not to take. He would therefore make peace 
at once if the Mexicans will only be persuaded to permit us, pull down our 
flag from the National Palace and Chapultepec and Puebla and Monterey, 
dig up our dead from the fields which their valour has consecrated, and 
come home, without indemnity for the past or guarantee for'the future, a 
shame to ourselves and the laughing-stock of the world. Truly, this is a 
short way of settling the question, whether Congress shall legislate for 
Mexican territory ! and in all respects characteristic of the party from 
which it comes. 

Such, thank Heaven, are not our Pennsylvania notions either of patri- 
otism or moral duty. Hear how nobly Mr. Dallas marks the contrast in 
a recent speech : 

" Under any circumstances, war is a calamity, to be avoided whenever 



( 19 ) 

it can be avoided consistently with safety and honor. It demoralizes so- 
ciety, breaks into the domestic relations and private pursuits of life, 
inspires unchristian passions, and eats out the natural and regular resources 
of government. It is especially hostile in its tendency to republican and 
simple institutions and habits. Still, this calamity must sometimes be en- 
countered. With all its evils ; it is a hundred fold better than national 
dishonor. However bitter and poisonous it may be, it is purifying nectar 
compared to the loathsome and noxious drug of cowardly disgrace. Our 
war was forced upon us by a presumptuous, perfidious, and invading 
neighbor; it is, on our side, a just and righteous contest to protect our 
soil, the lives and property of our citizens, the security and union of the 
States. Commensurate with the justice of our cause has been the victo- 
rious progress of our arms: until, at last, defeating our enemy at the very 
walls of his capital, we may expect from the instinct of self-preservation 
the indemnities we have a right to exact, and the honorable peace for which 
we have fought. 

Let but an honorable peace close this brilliant war, and none will regret 
the treasure expended in its prosecution. Let but our gallant soldiers re- 
turn to their homes, their "brows bound with victorious wreaths," and 
bearing in their hands the emblems of a conquered peace, and who will 
count the cost." 

Hear him too on the great constitutional question, which Mr. Clay would 
be content to dodge, by sacrificing all the objects of the war, all its gains, 
and all the glory it has won for us. Replying to the eloquent welcome 
addressed to him by the Hon. George R. Macfarlane, on behalf of the cit- 
izens of Blair county, Mr. Dallas said: 

"It is said, sir, that this yet unfinished foreign war is not the only speck 
upon our national horizon: — that our domestic tranquility is shadowed by 
a dark and threatening cloud, rapidly rising and spreading; and that the 
bolt is forging, if not launching, which, aimed at the domestic institutions 
and equal rights of our Southern sister States, must penetrate the mere 
parchment of our Constitution and shake the confederacy into fragments. 
A few words, sir, upon this interesting topic, and I have done. 

Let us not be alarmed at any matter which, however apparently portentous, 
is exclusively to be controlled by the American people. They are a just 
and a wise people. They have entered into the national compact, and 
will maintain its obligations, in the strictness of the letter and the fullness 
of the spirit ! They have long felt, and well know, not merely the bene- 
fits, but the positive political necessity of the Union. 

There are some questions of public and social order, which the framers 
of the Constitution and the people of the respective States who ratified it, 
never intended to submit, and have not submitted, to the decision of a 
Congressional majority. Had they done so, the wholesome sectional 
equipoise and the essentia! sovereign equality of the members of the Con- 
federacy would, at once, have been made to yield to the spirit and power 
of consolidation. Whatever a Congressional majority has a right under 
the provisions of the Constitution to legislate upon, that is a matter to 
which the American people have agreed to apply the principle and bear 
the consequences of consolidation: — what has been withheld from the ac- 



(20) 

tion of a Congressional majority, — that is beyond its reach, reserved either 
to the respective States or the people. 

Sir, to my mind, the whole character of the Constitution must be 
changed before you can discern in it a communication, express or implied, 
of a power to Congress, to mould, modify, change, establish, or prohibit, 
actually or prospectively, the domestic relations of any portion of the 
American people. Such a power rests with the people themselves alone : 
it is the vitality and inalienable right of self-government. 

I cannot yield my assent to the broad pretension that " the power to 
dispose of and make all needful rules ami regulation's respecting the 
territory, or other property, belonging to the United States" — a power 
given by the Constitution to Congress — involves any authority whatever 
to deprive the people of territories of every right, and subject them abso- 
lutely to the will of the majority of that body. This constitutional clause 
bears solely upon property, upon nuked land. If the territory be tenanted 
by men, and especially if those men have already their civil institutions 
and their domestic relations, and, still more strongly', if that territory has 
come to us, covered with established societies, by conquest or purchase, 
I cannot for an instant indulge the extravagant construction of this arti- 
cle, which would empower Congress to extinguish the privilege of self- 
government, and to do precisely with the local communities what it 
pleased. At that rate, we might, one of these days, be shocked by an 
act of Congress formally establishing slavery among a people who dis- 
claimed or excluded it; — for if this clause of the Constitution impart any 
power to prohibit, it equally imparts the power to originate and legalize. 

But, sir, in an address on such an occasion as the present, I should tres- 
pass unpardonably, were I to enter more minutely into constitutional 
views connected with this subject. I know it to be a topic of extreme 
interest: I know the extra-constitutional and transcendental manner, in 
which it is treated to the North and East: and I know the heart-sickening 
solicitude and the impetuous vivacity with which its very mention is met 
by our Southern brethren. But, sir, I repeat, let us not be alarmed : let 
us keep our faith untarnished : let us firmly and fearlessly stand by the 
Constitution, in its pure purpose and its fundamental spirit : and the 
gloomy cloud, whence disaster has been predicted, will gradually dissi- 
pate, as mist touched by the morning sun." 

With these decided expositions of Mr. Dallas' views, we close our 
hasty sketch of his Vice Presidential career. They show him still the 
same ardent patriot and determined statesman that he has proved him- 
self in every former time of trial. He is indeed a man incapable of 
change. His opinions, his sympathies, bis associations have not varied. 
Always for the Democracy, with the Democracy, and of the Democracy ; 
no one ever suspected him of compromising a principle, or evading a 
responsibility, or conniving at an intrigue; no one of truckling to an oppo- 
nent, or forgetting a friend. Proudly may Democratic Pennsylvania point 
to him, as her chivalrous representative, and the friends of the Consti- 
tution every where rally around him as its champion. 

November, 1847. 



iii 



